French: avoir and savoir

Self-tutoring about French irregular verbs: the tutor compares a couple.

The following is according to my understanding.

Learners of French, like myself, might look for patterns among irregular verbs. Some irregular, yet similar verbs follow similar patterns. What about avoir (to have) and savoir (to know)?

In present indicative, avoir and savoir aren’t very similar, except perhaps with nous and vous. Avoir goes like this: j’ai, tu as, il/elle a, nous avons, vous avez, ils/elles ont. Savoir goes je/tu sais, il/elle sait, nous savons, vous savez, ils/elles savent. One might see a little more of the -ir tendency with savoir than avoir.

With passé composé, avoir is, for instance, j’ai eu (I had), while savoir is j’ai su (I knew). The one might help recall the other, it seems.

With the present subjunctive, avoir and savoir are notably different. With avoir, it’s j’aie, tu aies, il/elle ait, nous ayons, vous ayez, ils/elles aient – totally unpredictable. On the other hand, with savoir, it’s je sache, tu saches, il/elle sache, nous sachions, vous sachiez, ils/elles sachent. So, avoir doesn’t predict savoir, in this context. Moreover, once someone knows savoir’s subjunctive stem is sach-, it behaves pretty predictably.

Yet, for imparfait, future and conditional, avoir and savoir have helpful similarities. For imparfait, it’s, for example, j’avais (I was having) and je savais (I was knowing). For future, it’s j’aurai (I will have) and je saurai (I will know), while for conditional it’s j’aurais (I would have), and je saurais (I would know).

Interesting, eh?

Source:

Kenney, M., Burville, V., Hickox, B., Hill, J., Potter, C. (1977). Passeport Français 8: Bonne Chance! D.C. Heath Canada Ltd.